Educating our Kids - for fathers

How many of you remember your parents ever helping you with your homework? I
don't remember having that luxury myself, but in today's educational world it is a must
to simply get by. As parents, the very best way to ensure the success of our children in
school is to sit down with them and help them with their homework. Now, I don't mean
give them the answers, but showing your willingness to spend that extra time each day
with them. Helping them to understand the importance of repetition and studying every
day. At a young age it is about forming the habits that will carry them through their
doctorate (we hope).

So where do we start as parents? The best way is to set aside the time each day to sit
down with them and walk through each question, each assignment and teach them to
carefully read the directions, or if they aren't reading yet, help them with how they can
determine on their own what is being asked from each problem. For the little ones, the
important part is to not allow them to be distracted while keeping it fun for them. Make
sure that they don't struggle too much with how to solve a problem or figure out what is
being asked. The emphasis at this age (preschool through first grade) should be to
"guide" them through the process and allow them to figure out as much as they can
on their own. This stage is really all about 1) time they get to spend with you 2) building
up their confidence 3) learning the specifics of each assignment and it really should be
in that order of importance.

Teaching our kids to read is probably the single most important role of parents at home.
Our children are not going to learn to read in a few hours at school every day. They are
going to need lots of practice at home to keep them up to speed with what is
expected in modern day education.

So, when should we start teaching our kids to read and how do we start this process?
There are many books that can guide parents through this process and can be found
at any local book store. The basic starting point should be in preschool at about the
age of 3 years old (earlier if your child shows signs of being ready, particularly with
learning the alphabet). Parents at home should be teaching them the alphabet by this
time and to get them started reading, we need to first teach them the sound each
letter makes.

We pasted the entire alphabet on the walls of our kid's rooms and every night before
bed we would say the whole alphabet. As time passes and they get that wired, we
would start simply pointing at letters to see how many they knew by sight only. We used
capitals and lower case letters and each letter was carefully written on its own 8 ½ x 11
sheet of paper and taped to the wall.

The next step was to review with them the sounds that each letter produces. Once they
have this stage pretty well figured out, they are ready to start reading short words with
you. Setting up a list of "sight" words (words with 3 letters or less) and working on
expanding the list over time is a great way to graduate into reading small sentences
and books. As you get into this stage, be sure to help them a lot with the words they
don't know. It can be frustrating sometimes, because they may know the word in one
sentence and forget it by the very next sentence. This is normal. It is critical NOT to get,
or show your frustration at this stage because it will hurt their self confidence. If they
don't get a word within 10 to 15 seconds, help them by sounding out each letter with
them and rolling the letters together to form the sound of the whole word. Mark their
progress by picking up in a book the next night where they left off the night before and
point out that they finished the previous portion. Reassuring them that they are making
progress is critical to their confidence and confidence is critical to their success.

As parents, it would be nice if there was a short class that we could take to walk
through these and many other teaching skills we will need to give our kids the best
chance possible at a great education. I think the improvement of our educational
system may need to start with programs designed to help educate the parents about
what is expected of them at home and classes in teaching them how to teach their
children.

This children's book is a terrific story and example of a father's relationship with his daughter and the great fun they have together at the Beach. Colorfully illustrated and written in rhythmic prose this book is an easy read for parents and fun and exciting for their children to listen and imagine their own special day with their father.

Book title:
A Day With My Dad» hardcover «

A children's book about a father and daughter spending a day together hiking in the hills around their town. With no distractions, a bond can be built between a father and a daughter that can last a lifetime.